


Like fields of poppies

by A_Nobelmonster



Series: Soul Mate Au's [1]
Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Casual mentions of sex, Child Abuse, Depression, M/M, Self-Harm, andrew-centric, i'm sorry y'all, sexual child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5945086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Nobelmonster/pseuds/A_Nobelmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul mate au . Andrew has always had more dark soul marks than most adults see in their life. He's used to it. Used to a life based on survival . And then he turns fifteen, a red dot appears. the color of a romantic soul mate. Suddenly the thought of living for the person that gave him his mark is the only thing keeping him alive. Just one chance to know the poor fucker meant for him. As usual It's more than he bargains for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like fields of poppies

**Author's Note:**

> All cannon warnings for Andrews past apply, pay attention please.
> 
> also, the tittle, if you don't know irl poppies can only bloom once the seeds have been crushed :/
> 
> The idea of the Au is that : pink/ red is love, friendship, affection. purple/black are pain, violence, hatred. blue is platonic  
> yellow is familial love. the intensity of the color indicates the level of emotion between people. A light mark indicates little to know feeling, a dark mark is a lot a feeling.

Andrew Doe 3 yrs.old

Andrew is three. His favorite foods are craisins and cheerios (without milk). His favorite show is Bob Ross’s painting hour. He can’t sleep unless he has a nightlight on and one foot outside the covers. His most often repeated word is ‘per’aps’. 

He has two marks on his skin, a yellow cloud-like shape in the chubby space between his thumb and forefinger and a black smear of color on his upper shoulder blade roughly the size of a palm. The sun colored mark where his mother touched his small hand as a baby is light, lighter than it should be for a soul mark from a family member. Most children's marks were a vibrant highlighter color, indicating a deep familial love. One had to squint to see Andrews, so diluted was the lemon mark. 

The other mark, however, was starkly visible across the light skin of Andrews back, the shade of the starless sky. No one ‘knew’ exactly how he got the mark that showed, however, all anyone could agree on is that whoever gave it had intense ire for the small child. 

Maybe it was the same person who’s love barely left a stain but as light as the mark was nothing fascinated Andrew more. He spent hours sitting in the light of the kitchen window, rounded cheek propped in one hand while he stared mesmerized by the hue of yellow.  
When he cried upset or afraid he would rub the mark with his the thumb opposite his hand. When he slept the marked hand lay underneath his mouth face turned into his pillow. Andrew dreamed in shades of yellow and warmth.

Andrew Doe age five

Andrew is five. His favorite food is cheese puffs. His favorite show is Pokemon. He can’t sleep unless he has a nightlight on and the door closed. His most often repeated word is ‘uh-oh’. 

He has four marks on his skin, a yellow cloud-like shape in the chubby space between his thumb and forefinger , a black smear of color on his upper shoulder blade roughly the size of someone's palm, A pastel pink splotch on the top of his shoulder approximately a centimeter wide where his foster sister Lily poked him during a game of tag and a slightly darker splotch on his left hand where a boy named Ethan kissed in the park when they were boy sitting on the top of the Jungle gym. 

Sarah, his foster mom for the last year is a tall thick brunette with a sharp smile. She uses big words like ‘socioeconomic’ and ‘establishment', Andrew doesn’t understand much but he loves the way she brushes his fringe out of his eyes like a real mom. She helps him tie his shoes and he helps her make breakfast every morning for the other foster kids. 

When a new foster kid catches sight of the inky skin on his shoulder and asks him who hates him he runs to her. Tears dripping from his reddened hazel eye’s he sits in her lap as she hums to him, “no one hates you, sometimes soul marks just show up. Oh, Andrew its ok.” But she says this with thin plastic gloves on. All Andrew can think about is the cold material on his cheek and how Sarah never touches him without gloves. Somehow that is 100 times worse than the angry mark, he cries harder a pain stirring in him like a hurricane.

Andrew Doe 7 yrs. old

Andrew is seven. His favorite food is carrot sticks and ranch. His favorite show is Digimon. He can’t sleep unless he has a nightlight on and the door locked. His most often repeated word is ‘i’m sorry’. 

He has five marks on his skin, a yellow cloud-like shape in the space between his thumb and forefinger , a black smear of color on his upper shoulder blade, A pastel pink splotch on the top of his shoulder approximately a centimeter wide, a slightly darker pink stain on his left hand , and a deep purple hand-print on his hip. 

The first dark soul mark Andrew got had been when he was younger. He didn’t know how it had felt to get it. When he got the candy pink marks from his former step-sister and the boy in the park, it had been a warm feeling of joy, like all of the best things in the world happening at once. It was a beautiful euphoria that Andrew turned to now when he was scared or in need of comfort. 

It was what he held on to tightly even now as his small fingers gripped the bottom of his bedpost fighting to stay quiet. He could hear the dull thumping echo of a fist on the wall just outside his door, the muffle of his name being called. From under the bed, every shadow was intensified as if the monster outside wasn’t the only monster in this house. If he thought he could cry he would but the shock of terror froze him as the door shook, once, twice. The threats of his foster father went unnoticed as warmth spread down his thighs. It seemed like days passed by before the door crashed open and he was pulled out from his hiding spot he unable to think to scream. 

The older man held him in the air by his upper arms, a look of hellish intent burning it’s way into Andrews shaking body.  
Sound drains from the room. He’s been here before. He knows these gloved hands. He knows, he knows, he knows. This is the part where he gets thrown to the ground and then will come the pain raining down on him like fire from the sky  
but someone's changed the script. Instead of the floor, he’s on his bed, his head snaps back with the bounce of springs but his body is already scrambling away. He flinches away from that hands that instead of punching him calmly holds him in place on his back. It’s like a bomb has gone off and his hearing is slowly returning in fractured syllables.

“-tell me your sorry Andrew…………..-good boy, you want to be a good boy right?..........-” He can’t move much less talk and that certainly isn’t the answer his foster father is looking for so he goes in search as he pulls up Andrew's shirt just above his head so his arms arm locked in his spider man t-shirt. “-drew, Andrew, “ his face stings but he looks up, “just say you're sorry. You didn’t mean to make me mad did you? No, just apologize.” 

“I want my mom” tears escaped unbidden, “I’m scared, I want my mom.” the fear ratchets higher and higher with the slide of leather on his skin, one hand placed at his throat the other at the waist of his pant's. “MOM!, MOM SAVE ME! MOMMA"- screams rattle through his throat, they linger in his head until he doesn’t know what he’s saying out loud. He doesn’t register the popping of his fly. He can’t focus on anything until a bright nuclear pain sets off every nerve ending in his skin.The blossoming purple hand print soaking dark into the skin of his hip, a soul mark of such passionate violence Andrew knew from that second no one was going to save him. especially not his momma. 

The pain that follows is a grenade compared to the soul mark but a grenade still causes damage. Andrew is torn apart by its shrapnel. What left laying in the bed is the collapsing hull of a small child, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I’m sorry-” his mouth doesn’t stop until the room goes dark and he feels the blood on his sheets cooling, his please echoing through the room like irradiated shadows. 

Andrew Spears, 15 yrs. old

Andrew is fifteen. His favorite food is sandwiches. The only show he can tolerate is the news. He doesn’t sleep. His most often repeated word is, well he doesn’t say much these days. 

He has seven soul marks on his skin: yellow on his hand, black on his upper shoulder blade, pastel pink on his shoulder , a slightly darker pink stain on his left hand , a deep purple hand-print on his hip, a constellation of blackened red on the inside of his thighs and one perfectly red dot the size of a freckle above the notch of his elbow. 

The two days after he gets the scar of black on his legs from Drake, he gets the dot of red on his elbow. At first, he thinks its blood. He’s torn at his skin enough for it to be but after Drake has left his room and he can remember how to function again he goes to the shower and it won’t come off no matter how raw he scrubs his skin. It traps a bubble of something dark in his chest, eye’s burning under the hot spray. He can barely breath focusing in on the small nearly invisible dot. It’s the red of roses and valentines and ……….and love. its the perfect shade of love and Andrew sinks to the shower floor before vomiting. 

The water can’t wash away the torrent of emotions. Sometime in the last two days, he had brushed by someone who would love him, sometime in the last two days he had unknowingly let slip maybe one of the only persons that could or would ever love him. However, that also meant that he had spared whatever unfortunate soul gave him the mark. How cruel would it be to force himself on someone, when he was little more than sand? just shards of degraded glass slipping through different hands over and over again. Dirty and stained with more black than most ever bodies see. Andrew repeats to himself that it's a good thing but the words are so hollow he hates himself a little bit more.

He does a lot of hating that year. Hating Drake for splitting him open night after night and plucking everything soft and good clinging to Andrews skeleton away with calloused hands. Hating his foster parents from ignoring the constant state of wanting to die that shined through Andrew's eye’s when he was awake. Hating himself for thinking someone out there was the answer to his problems and having to repeat to himself as he lay in bed with his back to the wall waiting for Drake, “no one's coming to save you. no one's coming.” Most of all hating the small perfect dot on his skin that was physical proof someone gave a shit about him and,

most of all the way he would viciously jerk out of Drakes grasp if he tried to touch the mark because, because….

Because as much as he wanted to die, as much as he hated every time his eye’s opened of their own accord, the dot was proof someone out there was his romantic soulmate. Someone with their very own tattoo of color left by Andrew. No one ever told Andrew what happens when someone who has given another a soul mark dies. Is it painful as the purple mark was? Does it happen without notice? for some reason, he didn’t want to that other person to find out. Try as he might he couldn’t make it mean nothing and at times, he found himself putting down his blade even when his skin called its siren song to sink the metal beneath waves of blood, the thought of that other person in his mind. 

 

Andrew Minyard, 20 yrs old.

Andrew is 20. He doesn’t have a favorite food but as long as it's not messy and bite-sized he doesn’t hate it. He doesn’t hate watching Jeopardy. He can sleep anywhere as long as he has his knives. His most often repeated word is ‘Shut-up’. 

He has eight soul marks on his skin: yellow on his hand, black on his upper shoulder blade, pastel pink on his shoulder , a slightly darker pink stain on his left hand , a deep purple hand print on his hip, blackened red on the inside of his thighs, one red dot above his elbow and a stroke of platonic-love-sky-blue across the side of his neck. 

In this time, he meets Neil Josten who has no soul marks at all. Though his skin is anything but unmarked. For the first time in a long time Andrew feels something like well, he couldn’t exactly tell you the emotion because as far as his experience goes it's all just different levels of pain. Neil makes him feel cautious and excited which is such an alarming turn around from numb he hates the kid on principal. 

The foxes play exy and Andrew plays Neil, mentally (and often times physically) turning the boy over and over in his mind. A person who is not quite a person. That part Andrew understands but the rest are just mismatching pieces of information that don't go into their proper slots according to what Neil tells Andrew. 

And is further perplexed several months later by the blossom of romantic scarlet across the nape of Neils' neck when Andrew holds him firmly against the lockers. It’s almost a betrayal of nature that this mess of a boy is one of his romantic soulmates. Andrew says nothing just watches as Neils' eye's widened with a look that means he can feel the spark of the soul mark as well. The crisp vibrating feeling that sends all other thoughts away, the sudden intensified awareness of each other. The smooth skin of Neils' neck, the generic floral scent of the body wash Neil last used. He lets go quickly uncaring of where Neil falls and excites the locker room holding his breath against the scent that clings to his hands. 

It's hours. Maybe day's before he can look at his fingertips where his bare skin brushed against Neil. He looks for color and finds himself lacking. He asks Bee in his abrasive casual manner one Wednesday what happens when a person doesn't leave a mark.

"It's impossible, even the dead leave marks Andrew."

What the fuck is he supposed to do with that? Nothing much can be done. The medicine cuts out his memories leaving small holes of partial conversations and the vague awareness that there is something he ought to be doing. 

Andrew can barely hold his attention to Neil's presence. Like everything in the past two years time flies by in a haze of mania and apathy. 

Neil is constantly saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and almost getting killed. It's really all Andrew has to look forward too at the moment. 

But while he was looking forward he doesn't notice his body gravitating towards Neil. He understands the attraction. A physical response to the other man's subtly delicate features. The soul mark doesn't help. Which is the most confusing part because Andrew doesn't have a mark from Neil. Though what else could explain how no matter where they are Andrew can spot Neil withing seconds? or the way that he doesn't even have to look at Neil to know when he goes distant with anxiety under his carefully blank expression. 

Andrew knows he's clever. He has contributed it to 90% of his survival so far but Neil makes him feel astoundingly stupid. Saying yes to each carefully worded question Neil asks him. Buying him things. Caring whether someone cracks that hesitant smile.

"You're just a pipe dream." Something Andrew had been hoping for since he was five had haunted him since fifteen, a red dot with too many emotions behind it. 

How he wished this feeling was a side effect of the drugs. The feeling of falling into a dark abyss backward. No matter how many times his hands settled on Neil he found the other boy as solid and troublesome as the fist day they met in Arizona. 

He keeps waiting though for his hands to reach out and Neil to pass through them like smoke or there be nothing to touch. Neil having run away once more like the frightened rabbit that came to Palmetto State. 

Months pass by and Neil is still there. Still playing games and practicing late as night with Kevin. Still there when Andrew pins him to the floor tasting Neil like he could get drunk from exposure. 

Every time he shoves Neil down to blow him or wrap his finger around the others wrist so he won't run away, Andrew waits and watches for another color to show on him . 

In fits of exasperation, he goes down on Neil almost painfully hoping for his lips or tongue to turn a light shade of pink or blue. A thought comes to him that maybe Neil cannot give soul marks but the thought crumbles like old icing as Neil gives Nicky a thin swatch of royal blue on his bicep. 

Which somehow means that Andrew and Neil were in the same place at the same time five years ago. Entirely different people. Just soft boys with softer hearts. Andrew turns away the thought before rage can storm the fortress of him mind but it remains, Neil is his perfect red dot. 

And then Neil is gone. Neil is gone and Andrew can't breathe. Panic . He doesn't know what happens to a person when the one who gave them a soul mark dies. He doesn't want to know and he can't accept it. He makes a necklace of his fingers around Kevin's throat.

"Tell me where he is or I will kill you. Now." Matt's pulling at him, Dan is shouting above Renee's calm reasoning and all Andrew can think is 'no, not this time. I won't let life fuck me over this time'. 

Only when Neil's battered face in his hands does he still. Every breath is painful as Neil is real before him. He thinks he might know now what happens when a soul mark dies, you die too. Slowly. too slowly to notice and then to quickly to react. Andrew feels like that. The brink of too far where his toes edge. Where he'd built a home for himself until Neil came along and took his hand walking somewhere unbearably promising. 

At least, Andrew was right about one thing. The person who gave him his red soul mark is the only one who would ever love him. 

"your close calls are getting old," he says , "I thought you knew how to run."

Neil gives him a look that says running is the furthest thing from what he wants. "I thought you told me to stop running."

"Survival tip: not one likes a smart mouth."

"Except you, " Neil reminds him and Andrew can't deny it so he fills the silence with his mouth on the other boy, hands gripping Neil's' wrist, pulses echoing in the empty room. 

 

Andrew Minyard, 21 years old. 

Andrew is 21. His favorite food is chocolate chip muffins Neil makes on the weekend. He likes watching the cooking channel. He can sleep anywhere as long as Neil is there or close by. His most often repeated word is ‘Neil’. Of the soul marks he has on his skin: there is the familial yellow on his hand, the hatred of black on his upper shoulder blade, the pastel pink of childish fondness on his shoulder , a slightly darker pink stain on his left hand of innocent infatuation, the deep purple of sexual violence in a hand-print on his hip and blackened red on the inside of his thighs, one red dot romantic above his elbow and a stroke of platonic love sky blue across the side of his neck but all of these nearly pale in comparison to the dozens dashes and dots of sunshine yellow and petal pink on his forearms from the foxes. They don't erase the lightness black strokes of color but no longer are they the focal point of Andrews body or Andrew himself.

**Author's Note:**

> to clarify:
> 
> 1\. gloves are worn in this universe by most people, especially adults because to give another person a mark is a very intimate thing. Adult are supposed to know better and be more careful to be appropriate. well supposed, it doesn't exactly work that way here. 
> 
> 2\. once a mark is given to another person (by touching them skin to skin), they cannot give another mark. the idea seemed to messy to me so.
> 
> Update: Also
> 
> Q: who gave Andrew the light blue mark on his neck? Renee?
> 
> A: It was Roland actually. I had this idea that Andrew let Roland touch him right away to see if he could trust him . when he saw the mark was platonic he relaxed, it explains his casual attitude with Roland because he knew Roland didn't want to love him (romantically) or hurt him.


End file.
